Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Don't Let Your Ego Persuade You.

Person A: "That's very offensive. I don't think it's right of you to do that!"

Person B: "You're right. Let me fix that!"

Person A is now satisfied with the decision made to uphold his belief and the offending thing has been eliminated.

Sounds harmless to most. A person's wishes being upheld at the cost of someone's ego in admitting they were wrong for having said thing around in the first place. A good example of this is religious material like that of the Jesus v.s. Mohammad fighting game. Here we naturally have some religious persons who are offended at the content (namely their religious icon) and wish for the game to be banned due to their wishes.

Okay sure. The game is a bit tasteless. I also tend to think there are tasteless things out there as well such as reality television show. Greatly offended by these types of shows. Regardless I uphold the right for others to enjoy them despite my belief that it's annoying dribble. In perspective those who are offended at the religious fighting game should stand for the same principle.

Look. Your ego doesn't need (and shouldn't be) stroked every minute of the day. Furthermore your ability to not understand that your belief is just part of a large group of beliefs hinders your overall progress in how you understand the way our society works.

I feel these people should be informed of how their ego poisons themselves and the rest of the world. By asking society to conform to their wishes I believe they make it easier to conform to other group's opinions that use their belief structure to rally support. Let's say for example someone supports measures against gay marriage. You happen to agree with this person and want them to fight for your belief structure.

The thing is that this person also happens to a very corrupt individual in the sense that he steals or accepts bribes from shady organizations. However, to those who support his fight won't want to see that. Why? Because he's got you by the chain. He's stroking your ego and telling you everything he does is just and right therefore relieving him of the responsibility to act ethically because no matter what he knows you'll confide in him due to his concept of fighting for an egotistical belief system you support.

My point is the more egotistical your belief the more likely you are to follow blindly with those who support a similar belief structure into whatever abyss they lay out. Only by giving everyone the right to believe what they want without infringing on others rights and belief will you be able to critically evaluate each person despite their crusades. The reason being is you won't feel 'star struck' or over joyed when they tell you what you want to hear about how they're fighting for your favorite belief. It's easy to put somoene on a soap box and glorify them but it could end up costing you.